This achievement puts Brite and the other 19 seminaries and divinity schools in the front ranks of addressing sexuality issues in the formation of religious professionals, according to the Religious Institute’s website.  Rev. Debra W. Haffner, Executive Director of the Religious Institute, said that the seminary list represents hard work and commitment on the part of each school in partnership with the Institute.  Though seminary education in the past offered virtually no help or instruction to prospective religious professionals in sexuality and sexual diversity, the landscape has changed in less than two years.  Haffner said, “These twenty seminaries are the vanguard in ensuring that tomorrow’s clergy are prepared to minister to their congregants, and to be effective advocates for sexual health and justice.” 

Brite was cited for instituting “a full-semester course on sexuality and pastoral care issues; has revised their community inclusion statement to be inclusive of sex, gender identity, and orientation; and requires all field education supervisors, students, and lay committees to address sexuality-related training needs.” In addition, the Fort Worth school has created a model for seminary-wide dialogue with Christian denominations on the ordination and authorization of LGBTQ people for religious leadership.

The Carpenter Initiative on Gender, Sexuality and Justice was inaugurated at Brite in October 2011, and named openly lesbian Rev. Dr. Joretta Marshall as its first director.  A grant of $250,000 over five years will advance teaching, dialogue and programming on sexuality and diversity.  Speaking at the Inaugural Service on October 4, Dr. Marshall, Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Counseling at Brite, said to a packed chapel, “For justice work to be carefully done, we must listen most clearly and closely to those whose very souls are at risk by the spirit of hate and rejection they experience in their churches.”  Dr. Marshall said that matters of sexuality and justice at Brite flow from “the recognition that God loves all people.”  She went on to say, “Being disruptive agents on behalf of justice requires support, both individual and collective, and the Carpenter Foundation and Brite are reminders that institutions can shape change.”

Rev. Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, an openly gay member of Brite’s faculty, is the 18-year Director of the Field Education and Supervised Ministry program that teaches practical ministry to all Master of Divinity (MDiv) and Master of Arts in Christian Service (MACS) students on the Fort Worth campus.  Reflecting on this milestone in sexuality education and ministry, Dr. Sprinkle said, “While much more remains to be done in the areas of diversity and sexual justice at Brite, this honor gives us a moment to pause and thankfully remember the courageous LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff, who worked so hard for equality and sexual wholeness in what many would consider a difficult part of the country.”  

“Brite stands in sharp contrast to the world’s largest Southern Baptist seminary, just down the street from us, where reparative therapy for homosexuality is still thought to be appropriately Christian,” continued Sprinkle, who founded and directs the Unfinished Lives Project to combat anti-LGBTQ hate crimes. “Given the unique way Bible, church, and theology have been misused in American religion to justify anti-gay discrimination and physical violence, the work of all these top seminaries to break the link between religious-based sexual bigotry and faith leadership is one of the most important things they do.”

Tracey Cooper-Harris, highly decorated Army veteran, denied spousal benefits because she is lesbian

Los Angeles, California – A highly decorated lesbian veteran of the U.S. Army is being denied disability benefits because of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and today the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed an important lawsuit to challenge DOMA on her behalf. Tracey Cooper-Harris served with honor in the U.S. Army for 12 years, and received an honorable discharge in 2003 after having received more than two dozen medals and commendations.  But because she married a person of her own sex in California, a perfectly legal marriage still in force, the United States government is denying her and her spouse Maggie equal disability benefits to those heterosexual spouses are receiving.

Cooper-Harris, who achieved the rank of Sergeant for her service in Kyrgyzstan and Kuwait in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, was diagnosed in 2010 with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a disabling disease of the brain and central nervous system for which there is no known cure. Government doctors determined that Cooper-Harris contracted MS as a result of her military service. Faced with a daunting future, she is trying to get her affairs in order as any responsible spouse would. Cooper-Harris received individual disability benefits, but since DOMA is still federal law, the government says that she and her spouse are not eligible for the spousal benefits her service truly entitles them too–all because of anti-gay discrimination, even after the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT).

Cooper-Harris said, “I dedicated 12 years of my life to serving the country I love. I’m asking only for the same benefits the brave men and women who served beside me enjoy. By refusing to recognize our marriage, the federal government has deprived Maggie and me of the peace of mind that such benefits are meant to provide to veterans and their families.”

The federal lawsuit, Cooper-Harris vs. United States, filed February 1 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, challenges the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the laws governing the Veterans Affairs policy that denies equal treatment before the law for Cooper-Harris and other married same-sex persons in the nation. Christine P. Sun, Deputy Legal Director of the SPLC, said, “The government’s refusal to grant these benefits is a slap in the face to the gay and lesbian service members who put their lives on the line to protect our nation and our freedoms. Especially given the recent repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, it’s shocking that the federal government continues to demean Tracey’s years of service and the service of many others in this way.”  The case is being litigated on Cooper-Harris’s behalf pro bono (at no charge) by the SPLC.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta (l), and Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell (Brian Clark, Virginia Pilot)

“Be yourself no matter what they say!” ~ Sting, lyrics from “An Englishman in New York.”  In the New Year 2012, our wish for all our loyal supporters of the Unfinished Lives Project is for each and everyone of us to be ourselves–in hope and joy, need or plenty, LGBTQ and GenderQueer and Intersex, from every walk of life, ability or the lack thereof, and in the audacity of the queer imagination.

It has been a tough, heartbreaking, wonderful year, as the photo of the first official lesbian kiss for the U.S. Navy post-DADT testifies. Virginia Pilot photographer Brian Clark caught on the the most striking LGBTQ images of the year when Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta kissed her girlfriend, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell December 21 at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek in Hampton Roads, Virginia.  Petty Officer Gaeta had just completed a tour of duty that took her and the crew of the USS Oak Hill to Central America.  Officials acknowledged that the kiss, an iconic tradition in the Navy, is the first done by a same-sex couple in U.S. naval history.  The couple won a raffle to decide who would get the opportunity to carry out the tradition when the ship docked. From the Virginia Pilot:

Until September, when the military’s ban on openly gay service was lifted, they worked hard to keep their relationship secret. When Snell came home from her last deployment in August, kissing on the pier wasn’t an option.

“This is the first time we can actually show who we are,” she says.

Adds Gaeta, “It’s nice to be able to be myself.”

Yes.  It is nice.  And groundbreaking.  Every time LGBTQ people act according to their power, no matter what others may say, the world changes just a little bit more in favor of diversity.  That is worth celebrating!  From all of us at the Unfinished Lives Project Team to all of you, a wish for an authentically, joyously, fulfilling New Year!

Gay/Lesbian Inclusive Nativity Scene Before Vandals Attacked (image courtesy of the church)

Claremont, California – Gay and lesbian images and a Star of Bethlehem were vandalized on Christmas at a local Claremont church. Between 11 a.m. on Saturday, Christmas Eve, and 9 a.m. Sunday, Christmas Day, vandals overturned two six-hundred-pound light boxes depicting same-sex couples in silhouette, leaving them face down on the lawn of Claremont United Methodist Church. A third light box depicting a heterosexual couple was left undisturbed.  Police are investigating the vandalism as a hate crime.  Because of the size of the panels and their weight, it is believed that a single person could not have carried out the crime. Over $3,000 worth of damage was caused to the installation.

The pastor, Rev. Dr. Sharon Rhodes-Wickett, says she and the church leadership have no doubts they did the right thing by displaying the controversial images.  The church has been a “Reconciling Ministries” congregation, welcoming LGBT people into the full life of the church, since 1993. She said that in view of the attack on the gay and lesbian panels of the display, the gay inclusive nativity exhibit was “exactly the right scene to put up,”  according to ABC 7 News.  CUMC is known for taking controversial stands on contemporary social issues, and they have displayed exhibits on the lawn concerning poverty, war, and illegal immigration in the past, for example–but this is the first time any scene at the church has been disturbed.

While no graffiti was left on the light boxes, the message was clear in the selection of which panels to turn over.  Sgt. Jason Walters of the Claremont Police Department said to the Daily Bulletin, “It’s a hate crime based on it being church property as well as the wooden box knocked over that depicted two males holding hands.”  Police are reviewing surveillance video of the area to identify the perpetrators.  No suspects have been identified as of yet.

The artist who constructed the 6-foot-by-8-foot light boxes, John Zachary, was not surprised that the vandalism occurred. He said to ABC 7, “I think that it troubled a lot of people.”  Still, Zachary believes the display achieved its purpose by creating dialogue. “What I’ve tried to do is to include the people who’ve been disenfranchised from the church and from the process,” he said. Local residents range in opinion from support for the displays to disapproval of the subject, some of them saying to reporters that the depictions of same-sex couples for Christmas outside a church were “in poor taste.”

Associate Minister Dan Lewis told the Daily Bulletin, “We have members of our church who are gay and lesbian who it sends a very personal message to. I tried to say in worship on Sunday morning that we will not let it trouble us.” An interfaith community vigil in support LGBT people is planned at the site of the installation for Thursday at 7:30 p.m.  Still, one of the more disturbing aspects of the incident is that few of the residents of the area seem to care about the vandalism much at all.  One member of the LGBTQ community opined that it is easier to talk about being a liberal community than it is to do anything substantive about it.

(Photo courtesy of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights)

Geneva, Switzerland – A hard-hitting, historic report calling on the nations of the world to defend the rights of gay people has been issued by the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights of the United Nations in Geneva.  For the first time, the world body has detailed the the murder, bias-motivated violence, torture, police detention, discrimination in jobs, health care and education that LGBT people face on a daily basis because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.  The report, which may be accessed here, was released on December 15 in response to the high number of reports of anti-gay human rights abuses flowing into the international body, according to the UN News Service.

In part, the report states, “The criminalization of private consensual homosexual acts violates an individual’s rights to privacy and to non-discrimination and constitutes a breach of international human rights law.”  Decrying violence against LGBT persons, the High Commissioner concludes that “Homophobic and transphobic violence has been recorded in all regions . . . Violence against LGBT persons tends to be especially vicious compared to other bias-motivated crimes.”  Data show that homophobic hate crimes often include “a high degree of cruelty and brutality.”

The hate crimes statistics in the report are horrific.  Lifting up the transgender and gender variant population, the High Commissioner reports, “The Trans Murder Monitoring project, which collects reports of murders of transgender persons in all regions, lists 680 murders in 50 countries during the period from 2008 to 2011.”  That said, the effort to collect data on murder and other acts of physical violence against LGBT people is complicated by the practice of nations around the world, either neglecting to collect these statistics, or outright refusing to allow their collection.

While over thirty nations have decriminalized homosexuality in the last two decades, 76 countries still make consensual acts between same-sex persons illegal, and at least five, Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen, make homosexual conduct punishable by death.

The High Commissioner, Navi Pillay, calls upon the nations of the world to “Repeal laws used to criminalize individuals on grounds of homosexuality for engaging in consensual same-sex sexual conduct, and harmonize the age of consent for heterosexual and homosexual conduct; ensure that other criminal laws are not used to harass or detain people based on their sexuality or gender identity and expression, and abolish the death penalty for offences involving consensual sexual relations.”

Further, High Commissioner Pillay “calls on countries to ensure that no one fleeing persecution because of their sexual orientation or gender identity is returned to a territory where their life or freedom is at threat, and that asylum laws recognize that sexual orientation or gender identity is a valid basis for claiming persecution,” according to the UN News Service.  Ms. Pillay also recently held press conferences appealing to member nations to abolish homophobic bullying leading to the suicide of young LGBT people.

The report intensifies the call to member nations, issued last year by UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, to “reject discrimination in general, and in particular discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Officer Laura Martin, LGBT Liaison Officer for the DPD, receives her promotion badge from Police Chief David Brown

Dallas, Texas – Officer Laura Martin, the Dallas Police Department’s LGBT Liaison Officer, has been promoted to Senior Corporal. According to the Dallas Voice, Martin was one of 37 officers promoted to the rank.  Making her achievement even more notable is that out of 400 who took the exam this year to become Senior Corporal, Martin earned the top score.  She received her badge of promotion for Dallas Police Chief David Brown in a ceremony held the first full week of December.

Martin, a lesbian, has been with the Dallas Police Department for the past 14 years, and has been the department’s LGBT Liaison Officer for the past five years.  She has been instrumental in improving communications between city police and the large Dallas LGBT population.  When crimes affecting the queer community occur, Martin is called in, and she often makes public statements to interpret police actions in sensitive cases.  DPD relationships with gays and lesbians have been rocky in the past, especially in instances when the Oak Lawn/Cedar Springs community was not informed of crimes in a timely manner by the police.  Martin’s advocacy and professionalism have helped sensitize fellow officers to the issues facing the LGBTQ community, and likewise have made gay people feel they have a voice in the department, speaking up for their concerns and rights.

Martin is currently working primarily in the Dallas Police Department’s Northwest Division.  Her duties include membership in a community engagement unit.  When questioned by the Voice about whether this promotion would change her venue or her current duties, Martin said that she did not expect any changes in the near future.

Dallas is fortunate to have the professional service of a fine officer like Senior Corporal Laura Martin as Liaison to the LGBTQ community.  The Unfinished Lives Project Team, who are engaged in anti-LGBTQ hate crimes education and prevention, join Officer Martin’s many friends and admirers to say, “Congratulations, Laura!”

Ricky Martin speaks out against change in Puerto Rican penal code (AP photo).

Ricky Martin, Latino Superstar, blasted politicians in his home commonwealth of Puerto Rico for seeking to remove gay people from legal protection from bias-motivated hate crimes, according to Fox News Latino. Martin posted a strong statement on his website blog denouncing the move.  In part, he said:

“I am very saddened by the turn the discussion on criminal law has taken in Puerto Rico that proposes to eliminate the aggravating in cases where crimes are committed by prejudice against the victim.”  Martin went on to say, “They ought to do their homework and review the Universal Declaration of Human Rights a bit…which says that everyone – all citizens – are equal before the law and have, without distinction, the right to equal protection under the law.”

Martin’s opposition to the change in Puerto Rico’s hate crimes law comes at a time when the numbers of anti-gay and transgender hate crimes are reaching epidemic proportions.  His voice will help amplify the protests of local LGBT and Dominican activists who are fighting the passage of the amendment in the legislature. In March 2010, Martin came out openly as a gay man, ending years of speculation by the public.  On his website, he said, “I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am.”  After years of  declining to comment on his sexual orientation, Martin said, “These years in silence and reflection made me stronger and reminded me that acceptance has to come from within, and that this kind of truth gives me the power to conquer emotions I didn’t even know existed.”   Now the father of two young sons , Matteo and Valentino, who were born of a surrogate mother in 2008, Martin took citizenship in Spain in 2011, where he intends to marry his lover.  Though he could be married in certain states in the U.S., he has said he wishes to marry in Spain to acknowledge the work of LGBT rights advocates and Prime Minister Zapatero there.

One of the motivators Martin says moved him to come out publicly as a gay man was the gruesome murder of Jorge Steven López Mercado in 2009.  The gay teen was abducted, dismembered, beheaded, and his remains were left burning along a rural road in central Puerto Rico.  The savagery of the killing awoke the consciences of many on the Island besides Martin, though the numbers of violent attacks against LGBT Puerto Ricans has continued to rise.  López Mercado’s murderer has been convicted, and is serving a 99-year sentence.

Graphic from beingliberal.org on Facebook

Geneva, Switzerland – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared to the leaders of the world that LGBT rights must be a priority for the world community.  As reported by the BBC, Secretary Clinton said in a speech to international diplomats at the Palais des Nations on International Human Rights Day, “Being gay is not a Western invention, it is a human reality.” In a powerful declaration of the full humanity of LGBT people, she refused to excuse discrimination against gay people because of religious beliefs or social mores: “Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority,” Clinton said to the U.N. audience, “being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” Clinton reflects the policy power of the United States government, making it clear that, despite difficulties with allies who discriminate willfully against LGBT people, the Obama Administration will combat discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexual people, and transgender people using foreign aid and diplomacy to promote change.

On violence against queer people around the world, Secretary Clinton acknowledged that there was still much to be done at home in the United States, where LGBT people were unindicted felons in 14 states as late as 2003 (when the Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling struck down sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas), and many face attacks and all manner of bullying even today.  Still, Clinton argued, “It is violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave. It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished. It is a violation of human rights when lesbian or transgendered women are subjected to so-called corrective rape, or forcibly subjected to hormone treatments, or when people are murdered after public calls for violence toward gays, or when they are forced to flee their nations and seek asylum in other lands to save their lives.”  The effect of these words on the continuing physical violence against LGBT people in the U.S. and throughout the world remains to be seen, but the results could be inestimable, according to Unfinished Lives Project Director, Dr. Stephen Sprinkle. “Today, Secretary Clinton served notice on all who perpetrate violence to terrorize LGBTQ people anywhere in the world that harm against this marginalized population will not be tolerated by civilized people. Cloaking anti-LGBT bigotry in religious or moral special rights is coming to a close,” Sprinkle, an ordained gay Baptist minister, said. “We are reaching the tipping point in the culture wars in this country, and the scales are falling in favor of security and justice for members of the gender variant and sexual minority. United States foreign and domestic policy has entered into a new era of advocacy for LGBTQ people on a par with racial/ethnic minority people, religious minorities, and women.”

Known for her advocacy for women and children, this speech indicates that the rights of LGBT people, always part of Mrs. Clinton’s public agenda, now has moved to a front-and-center priority for the most prominent woman in American politics. The speech was sweeping in scope, announcing that, in words redolent of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, gay rights are “inalienable.”

‎In the moving conclusion to her remarks, Secretary Clinton spoke directly to all gay people who find themselves persecuted and in fear of harm (and, by indirection, to their persecutors, as well): “And finally, to LGBT men and women worldwide, let me say this: Wherever you live and whatever the circumstances of your life, whether you are connected to a network of support or feel isolated and vulnerable, please know that you are not alone. People around the globe are working hard to support you and to bring an end to the injustices and dangers you face. That is certainly true for my country. And you have an ally in the United States of America and you have millions of friends among the American people.” 

The full text of Secretary Clinton’s speech may be found on the State Department website by clicking here.  A link to the full text of the speech, and video of Secretary Clinton delivering it, may be accessed on Huffington Post here.

Rev. Dr. Stephen Sprinkle speaking to a rally at the University of Toledo (Toledo Blade Photo).

Toledo, Ohio – An ordained gay Baptist minister has called upon churches to change their anti-gay attitudes and language.  Dallas Baptist preacher and theologian, Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, speaking to a packed house at the University of Toledo last month, said that the notion Christianity and the Bible are considered irreconcilably anti-gay by many in contemporary churches is simply wrong. Citing Dr. Peter Gomes, the late chaplain of Harvard, Sprinkle said that the biblical teachings on hospitality to those who have been deliberately excluded by society, ”the poor, the discriminated against, people of color, women, homosexuals, and all persons beyond the conventional definition of Western civilization,” is far more significant than the few misinterpreted Bible texts used to condemn LGBTQ people.  Sprinkle went on to note that Christianity arose in the cosmopolitan world of the Greeks and the Romans, who in the main were tolerant of same-gender-loving people for much of the classical age.  When taken as a whole, the early churches exhibited very little concern about what we today call “homosexuality.”  “Homosexuality,” Sprinkle said, “is not mentioned in the Top Ten [Commandments], and is not in the message of any of the Prophets.”

The Republic reports that Sprinkle was invited to speak at a rally sponsored by Equality Toledo in response to the so-called “billboard wars” over LGBTQ acceptance in the Toledo church community.  A progressive United Methodist congregation put up a large billboard on a well-traveled street in April proclaiming that “Gays Are a Gift From God.”  An evangelical mega church responded by buying up space on nine huge billboards around the city rebutting the Methodist claim with the slogan “Gays Are NOT a Gift From God.”  Sprinkle, a professor at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, and Theologian in Residence at Cathedral of Hope United Church of Christ, the largest LGBTQ predominant congregation in the world located in Dallas, is a widely-sought speaker and teacher.  His most recent book, Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Resource Publications, 2011), is an anthology of stories of people murdered for their sexual orientation and gender identity, most of whom were killed by people who claimed justification from the Bible and church teachings. He is the founder of the Unfinished Lives Project, and the web master of http://unfinishedlivesblog.com, a blog seeking to remember the victims of hate crimes violence in the United States.

Behind the statistics are the stories of flesh-and-blood victims and their families, and the news here is disturbing. 1,528 victims were targeted because of animus against sexual orientation.  Of these, 57.3 percent of victims were gay males, and 11.9 percent were lesbians. The numbers of violent attacks against transgender people are fragmentary at this point, since statistics of this particularly vulnerable group have only been recorded by the FBI since the Matthew Shepard-James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by President Obama in October 2009.  But the news of brutalities against transgender people, especially transgender women of color, is alarming.  GLAAD reports that, of the people murdered for sexual orientation and gender identity and expression bias, 70 percent were persons of color, and 44 percent were transgender women [NCAVP figures]. Though suicides of LGBTQ teens due to homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools have captured the headlines repeatedly since 2010 began, no separate FBI statistical category yet exists for the collection of these data.

In the recent Civil Rights Conference on Hate Crimes at the University of Texas at Arlington, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez declared in his keynote address, “We are experiencing a headwind of hatred and intolerance in the United States.” FBI Special Agents appealed to local law enforcement, U.S. Attorney officials, and leaders from the North Texas LGBTQ community to co-operate in the reporting of hate crimes, underlining the difficulty feds are experiencing amassing accurate data.   In its 2010 report, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), widely held to offer more accurate statistics on anti-LGBT hate crimes than the FBI, noted a 13 percent rise in homophobic and transphobic violence from 2009 to 2010, and a 23 percent rise in the murders of LGBTQ people.

Kristen Cooper, Bashed for Being Lesbian (KENS 5 photo)

San Antonio, Texas – An out lesbian student from the University of Texas at San Antonio says that she was assaulted by two men calling her obscene, anti-LGBTQ epithets over Halloween weekend. Kristen Cooper told KENS 5 that the only thing the two men who attacked her knew about her prior to the assault was that she was a lesbian. “I just think it was a hate crime against me,” she sad, still shaken by the incident.

Cooper says she was waiting for a ride from a local Halloween Party when two men stopped their van, grabbed her, beat her while yelling slurs about her sexual orientation, and drove her some distance before they pushed her out and drove away.  Cooper fought back against them, “full-fist,” probably putting up such resistance that her assailants decided it wasn’t worth the effort. She had no cell phone, so she walked a long distance before someone noticed her, stopped, and then called the police.

Cooper’s injuries were extensive: cuts, bruises, a contusion, a concussion, and whiplash. When asked how she was coping with the attack, Cooper said to KENS 5, “Just still in shock and I’m trying really hard not to cry, but nothing like this should happen to anybody.” The San Antonio Police are currently investigating the crime as an assault, with no word about whether they intend to classify the brutal beating as an anti-LGBTQ hate crime.

Phyllis Lyon, hero of the LGBTQ Civil Rights Movement

Today is Phyllis Lyon’s 87th birthday, and we at the Unfinished Lives Project pause to celebrate her life and work as a pioneer of the LGBTQ Civil Rights Movement.  Born November 10, 1924 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Phyllis earned a journalism degree from the University of California at Berkeley. She, along with her spouse, Del Martin, founded the Daughters of Bilitis in San Francisco in 1955, the first lesbian social and political organization in the world, along with a handful of other courageous lesbians.  In 1956, Phyllis became the first Editor of the landmark lesbian paper, “The Ladder,” from 1956 until 1960 when Del took over from her.  In 1964, she and Del co-founded the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, bringing religious leaders together for the first time to address the roles of queer women and men in communities of faith, and to encourage faith groups to accept LGBTQ people.  She and Del were active in the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club, and were the first lesbian couple to join the National Organization for Women (NOW). In the 1960s and ’70s, they used their influence to de-criminalize lesbian and gay behavior.  In 1995, the couple were prominently active in the White House Council on the Aging.

Coming out in the 1950s was tricky and dangerous.  Originally, Phyllis used the pseudonym “Ann Ferguson” in her writing and editorial work, but dropped it to come out openly and fully as an encouragement to all LGBTQ people to speak the truth as who we are.  Interviewed by young queer journalists during the 2009 National Equality March in Washington, D.C., Phyllis reflected on the courage it took to live openly as a lesbian or gay man in the Eisenhower Era. She told her teen interviewers for The Advocate, “The time was not the time when you could wear a sign that said, ‘Hi, I’m a lesbian, be friendly with me!’” 

Phyllis and Del met in Seattle in 1950, and became lovers in 1952. In 1953, they moved to San Francisco. In February 2004, they were issued a Marriage License by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome, and were married–only to have their marriage dissolved by the California Supreme Court that same year.  Not to be denied, Phyllis and Del were the first couple to be legally married in San Francisco City Hall on June 16, 2008 once the California Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in the Golden State–in fact the only couple married that day by the mayor. Del passed away later that year.

Honoree Stephen V. Sprinkle (Phoebe Sexton photo for Cathedral of Hope)

Naming him among activist “trailblazers” who have knocked down barriers to LGBT equality, Queerty.com honored Unfinished Lives Project Founder and Director, Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle as one of “6 LGBT Seniors You Should Know” in the United States. As the capstone to Queerty’s celebration of LGBT History Month, the editorial team decided to honor LGBT activists who had dedicated their lives and work to bringing full equality for LGBTQ people.

Dr. Sprinkle was cited for his work in organized religion, as a pioneer gay scholar at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas, and for his efforts in anti-LGBTQ hate crimes education and prevention.  In response to the news, Dr. Sprinkle said, “I am moved by this honor, naming me among such a distinguished group of LGBT seniors.  Gray is good!  I also want to lift up the multitudes of queer folk whose labors every day for justice go largely unseen and unsung.  In their names, I accept this honor from Queerty.”  Also named were West Hollywood, California psychologist and Radical Faerie co-founder Don Kilhefner; groundbreaking Chicago, Illinois activist Vernita Gray; New York City LGBT activist Jay Kallio; and Davis, California Marriage Equality champions Shelly Bailes and Ellen Pontiac, who were among the first LGBT couples to be legally married in the Golden State.

Lesbian couple threatened with death

Parker, Colorado – A lesbian couple were tagged by a death threat on two consecutive days last week in Parker, a town southeast of Denver.  On Friday, Aimee Whitchurch and Christel Conklin found a target symbol spray painted on their condo door and the phrase, “KILL THE GAYS,” tagged on their garage door in bright red paint for all the neighbors to see. The next morning, they opened their front door to find a noose laid on their door mat.  Whitchurch said that when they discovered the noose, they knew their lives really were at risk.

Not the types to let such serious matters go, the couple responded by complaining to the Home Owners Association of their condo complex, whose president haphazardly splashed white paint over the red spray paint Saturday.  His less-than-professional job barely covered the graffiti, and exacerbated the problem.  Whitchurch and Conklin responded by taping a sign to the garage door that read, “Solve the problem; don’t paint over it.”  The couple told Channel 9 News that they were sure their sexual orientation was the reason for the hateful graffiti attack and the noose. Whitchurch said the neighbors figured out they were not “roommates,” and took homophobic action against them.  As Conklin said in the same interview, “Being lesbians is okay, until you start living together,” in Douglas County. “This is where we live. We should feel safe. I am afraid to walk outside my place now,” Whitchurch said.  The couple have lived in the condo for nearly six months.

A feud had been brewing between the neighbors and the lesbian couple, according to the women.  The Advocate reported that the HOA had complained that they were not picking up the feces after walking their dogs. Conklin answered the charges in detail to Channel 9: “It ridiculous. We have a Mastiff and a Great-Dane, two of the largest breed dogs, if we didn’t pick up after them this entire place would be covered. It’s completely invalid. That’s just common sense,” she said. The couple also own an English Bulldog puppy.  Since the initial attack, the lesbians’ car has been keyed, and dog feces has been scattered on their property.  Channel 9 reporters have repeatedly tried to contact the HOA officers for a statement, but no one has returned the calls.

Douglas County Sheriff’s Office investigators have been on the case, but have surfaced no persons of interest.  Detective Ron Hanovan said to Channel 9: “Right now, we don’t have any leads and no one is in custody.” Two offenses are involved in this attack, Hanovan went on to say, criminal mischief over $1,000, and anti-LGBT crime.  Conklin and Whitchurch say they are taking this case to the FBI.

The HOA finally sent a reputable painter to cover the slipshod work the HOA president did on the couple’s garage door.  In the meanwhile, Whitchurch and Conklin are not going anywhere.  They still walk their adult dogs, and their little bulldog, Ellie May.  On electric green and pink poster board, they have put up new signs the neighbors cannot miss.  One of them declares, “We are not the gay couple!  We are Aimee and Christal!”

Anti-LGBTQ Activist Scott Lively

Springfield, Massachusetts – In an example of the worst religion-based bigotry of this generation, a longtime promoter of violent rhetoric against the LGBTQ community published an open letter claiming to love gay people with a message of hate.  Scott Lively, founder of Abiding Truth Ministries in Springfield, Massachusetts, has targeted gays and lesbians for criminalization on three continents, and is on the Montgomery, Alabama Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of Hate Groups.  The SPLC in its “Hatewatch: Keeping an Eye on the Radical Right” bulletin reports that Lively posted an RSVP letter to “LGBTs” on his DefendtheFamily.com website on Monday. Lively says he “loves” gays, but they are all bound for hell, and need help.

As the SPLC notes, Lively has worked feverishly for three decades to defame and outlaw gays and lesbians in his speaking and publishing.  His only work of note is The Pink Swastika, a thoroughly discredited screed in which Lively contends that the Nazi movement was a homosexual plot.  By implication, Lively accuses LGBTQ people of instigating World War II and the execution of untold millions. While no reputable historian credits a thing he says, right wing Slavic Christian extremists have promoted the book throughout the old Soviet Bloc and beyond.  Lively has been influential in the Watchmen On the Walls ministries, which has calls gays and lesbians a disease that requires an “divine penicillin” and expressions of “muscular Christianity” to cure.  He is one of the prime advocates of reparative therapy in sub-Saharan Africa.  In Uganda, Lively testified before lawmakers as the infamous “Kill the Gays” bill was making its way through Parliament.  Now that the Ugandan government is reconsidering the stalled bill, which makes homosexual activity punishable by death, Lively’s pseudo-science and religious distortions will come into play again, urging state-sanctioned violence and oppression against LGBTQ people.

In this country, Lively excused the hate crime murder of gay immigrant Satendar Singh by Slavic Christian fundamentalists in Sacramento.  Singh’s murder heightened tensions between the LGBTQ community and Russian and Slavic fundamentalist churches, as reported at chapter length in the recent book by Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, Unfinished Lives. In effect, Lively has declared war on the LGBTQ community  time and time again. In a letter to the Washington Times on June 23, 2003, Lively wrote: “No clear-thinking person believes that the homosexual sexual ethic and that of the family-based society can peacefully coexist. …One must prevail at the expense of the other.”  At a Russian conference in Novosibirsk in August 2007, Lively’s violent metaphors came out in the open: “There is a war that is going on in the world. There is a war that is waging across the entire face of the globe. It’s been waging in the United States for decades, and it’s been waging in Europe for decades. It’s a war between Christians and homosexuals.”

In Lively’s RSVP letter to the LGBT community, though he changes his tone, there is no reason to believe he has moderated any of his virulent, anti-gay intentions for outlawing and criminalizing people based on their sexual orientation and gender variant identity.  He claims that God gave him a “Word” in March to speak directly to the gay community.  He writes to LGBTQ people: “I am appealing to you to begin to agree with God about homosexual sin, and to turn away from the seductive lie that God approves of homosexuality and wants you to embrace a homosexual identity . . . You must repent to be saved.”  Lively particularly singles out Open and Affirming Churches, which welcome LGBTQ people and celebrate their lives and loves, and reduces Christian faith to a condemnation of anyone who deviates from Lively’s norms.  Lively also condemns any attempt from the gay and lesbian community to do theology at odds with his own: “’Gay theology’ turns the logic of the Bible on its head, and tries to make the sinner “good enough” to earn heaven . . . This is a dangerous lie that leads straight to hell.”  The solution for LGBTQ people is to rush to Exodus International for anti-gay aversion brainwashing.

In an astonishing attempt to prey upon LGBTQ people who suffer from internalized homophobia, he finishes his letter with a simpering self-justification: “In publishing this letter I know that I will be subjecting myself to ridicule, abuse and hatred. You know very well how nasty some of your peers can be. Yet I am doing it anyway, because in Jesus I love you and I want you to be saved . . . Frankly, as I sit here at my computer, I wonder whether my entire career against your political and social agenda, and all of the notoriety I have achieve in your community might all have occurred so that I would be a person whose letter you would read today.”

Scott Lively is an example of the worst religious bigotry active in America today.  SPLC’s Ryan Lenz writes that Lively began his career in bigotry in 1992 seeking to classify homosexuality on a par with pedophilia and sadomasochism.  He has not changed, nor are his motives ever to be trusted.  Ask Satendar Singh’s family. 

Rev. Cheri Holdridge, Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, and Rev. Ed Heilman at Equality Toledo Event Monday (Kurt Young photo).

Toldeo, Ohio – A packed auditorium heard an out gay Baptist scholar from Texas challenge the Toledo Christian Community and the LGBTQ and Allied Community of Northwest Ohio to move toward reconciliation on Monday night.  Dr. Stephen Sprinkle of Brite Divinity School, and Theologian in Residence of Cathedral of Hope, Dallas, the world’s largest LGBTQ predominant congregation in the world, spoke on “Born This Way: Why faith communities are welcoming LGBTQ people.”  Dr. Sprinkle is the founder of http://unfinishedlivesblog.com and the Unfinished Lives Project which seeks to tell the stories of hate crimes victims in the United States. A coalition of progressive Christians and Muslims, as well as Equality Toledo responded to homophobic signs posted around Toledo by a mega church in Maumee pastored by a well-known detractor of the LGBTQ community.  In April 2011, a small open and affirming United Methodist Church collected money enough to put up a large billboard proclaiming, “Gay Is A Gift From God.” The purpose according to the leadership of Central United Methodist Church was to start a conversation in Toledo about healing and inclusion at a time of dire economic crisis and social stress.  Then, in September, the 2,500 member Church on Strayer, pastored by Evangelist Tony Scott, decided to bombard Toledo with nine billboards countering, “Gay is NOT a Gift from God,”  with the word “NOT” in scare-caps and blazing red.  Adweek called this “a church ad battle over God and Gays.” The Toledo Blade reported that Scott believes sexual orientation is a choice, and an evil one.  But Central UMC’s members were not discouraged by the homophobic mega church attacks. Lynn Braun, chair of the Methodist Church’s lead team said to the Blade: “I’m somewhat surprised it didn’t happen earlier. We felt it important to express our faith this way. I think people have the right to express their faith the way they see fit, and I think it helps the community to know where churches stand.”

In a bold move, progressives reached out this week with a positive response to the attacks.  Fox News Toledo led its evening news with the story, “Controversial Billboards Spur Positive Response.”  Fox interviewed Rev. Cheri Holdridge, pastor of the Village Church in Toledo, and one of the organizers of the University of Toledo event.  She countered the homophobia with an affirming message of God’s love.  “Two churches put billboards up and one particular church feels that it is the word of God that gay people are not welcome in churches,” Holdridge said to Fox News. “We wanted to be clear to the people of Toledo that there are many churches that do welcome gay people and that we don’t believe it is a sin to be gay.” Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, an openly gay faculty member at Texas Christian University’s Brite Divinity School told Fox, ”There is a spiritual movement afoot that includes everyone. Including LGBTQ people. There are literally hundreds of thousands of faithful people who are gay or lesbian or transgenders, who have come out in their congregations’ lives and we’re not going back in the closet again,” Dr. Sprinkle went on to say. “Because of that, then, there is a conversation about what the role of faith communities needs to be towards us.” Joni Christian, a member of the United Church of Christ who attended the event at UT, said she was thankful for the message of truth and reconciliation at the meeting.  Speaking to Dr. Sprinkle, she said, “Thank you for your message in Toledo. You brought it in such a way that we should remember WWJD (What Would Jesus Do).”

The last word on homosexuality and Christianity has not been delivered in Toledo, yet.  The leadership of the Church on Strayer will surely load up and shoot back.  But Dr. Sprinkle said, “They are shrill in their condemnation of LGBTQ people because they know they have lost the cultural and moral argument about inclusiveness and diversity.  Homophobia is still potent in the Midwest and throughout America.  But the balance is tipping toward justice for marginalized people, the sorts of people Jesus himself was most comfortable around in his own day. Equality Toledo is on the right track,” Sprinkle added. “Answer hate with love.  We do not have to treat our adversaries as they have persecuted us. We have a God who turns enemies into friends.”

Technician photo of hate attack on NC State LGBT Center

Raleigh, North Carolina –  A perp with an anti-gay agenda vandalized the North Carolina State University GLBT Center on Monday.  Though the university was quick to obscure the slurs spray painted on the outer door and display case of the center, the campus newspaper, The Technician, got a good photograph of the message the hate tagger sent to LGBTQ staff and students at State.  The words “Fags Burn” and “Die,” along with a broad slash across a wall display were sprayed in purple paint across the whole front of the center, which is in Harrelson Hall on the main campus.  Campus Police Sergeant Jeff Sutton told The Technician that the hate act took place between 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm, when the vandalism was discovered. Adam Ward, a graduate advisor for the GLBT Center, and a graduate student at State in comparative biomedical science, wrote on a Facebook post, ”No one was able to see who sprayed-painted this, but believe me, there will be a University response. We will continue working with University Police, and I thank all of our community members and allies for standing up for equality and what’s right.”  On her Facebook page, Center Director Justine Hollingshead posted this assurance to the LGBTQ community on the State campus: “We are working on some positive follow up and of course education. Just wanted to keep folks in the loop. Thanks for all of the messages of support.”  Hollingshead was employed to lead the GLBT Center in 2008, and has built it into a vital player in forming campus opinion about diversity and inclusiveness issues.

Sergeant Sutton said that since this was an act of vandalism against property, it would be considered a hate incident, rather than a hate crime against an individual.  Campus police are reviewing video surveillance tapes for the identity of the perpetrator.

On Tuesday evening, a public meeting was called by the GLBT Center leadership to generate ideas about a proper response to this act of hatred.

Dr. Stephen Sprinkle, Director of the Unfinished Lives Project, has been the guest of the NC State GLBT Center on two occasions, most recently in April of this year.  Dr. Sprinkle said, “This act of hate is not an isolated incident, in my opinion. North Carolina faces a divisive anti-same sex marriage ballot measure due to the work of extremist elements who took over the State Legislature in Raleigh for the first time since Reconstruction.” He continued,  ”Radical, right wing homophobia is more likely to be unleashed against the LGBTQ community during times of high publicity on sexual orientation and gender expression issues.  Vigilance and swift action to identify and prosecute the vandal or vandals is necessary to send the counter message that gays and lesbians will are no longer viable targets for violence in the South.  The leadership of the NC GLBT Center should be commended for working so quickly to involve the campus community in education for justice and moderation in the wake of this disturbing incident.  Hate speech links up to hate violence, and words like “Fags Burn” carry the situation to a whole new level in Raleigh.”

The anti-LGBTQ vandalism occurred a month after the North Carolina General Assembly moved its same-sex marriage ban for state-wide vote to the May 2012 primary ballot.  If passed, the provision pushed by the Republican majority in the Legislature not only would ban same-gender marriage, but would also strip domestic partner benefits from North Carolinians. Adam Miller, interim director of Equality North Carolina, issued this statement in response to the NC State vandal attack: “The passage of this amendment clearly sanctions other discriminatory acts against LGBT people and, in the process, creates a climate of fear for LGBT people, their families, their children, and all who love them,” Miller said. “This hateful act will only serve to draw attention to our efforts and push us to work even harder to inform the public about the dangers of anti-LGBT legislation to our state, our communities, and our young people.”

Kameny was a combat soldier in World War II, and used the G.I. Bill to earn a doctorate in astronomy from Harvard University after the war.  He worked for the U.S. Army Map Service in the 1950s until his superiors learned he was gay, and fired him for it. Kameny contested the firing, taking his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court–making him the first person to bring a gay-related issue to the high court.  The Supremes held in favor of the lower court, setting aside Kameny’s suit, but his experience before the court confirmed him as a lifelong gay rights activist.  He launched the first gay rights demonstrations at the White House in 1965, and was the first gay person named to the D.C. Human Rights Commission.

Joe Solmonese, head of the Human Rights Campaign, said of him, “From his early days fighting institutionalized discrimination in the federal workforce, Dr. Kameny taught us all that ‘Gay is Good.’ As we say goodbye to this trailblazer on National Coming Out Day, we remember the remarkable power we all have to change the world by living our lives like Frank ­— openly, honestly and authentically.” 

In later years, Kameny fell on hard times, running short of money for food and housing.  Friends and activists spearheaded an effort to raise funds to make his later years more secure and worry-free.  As the movement for LGBTQ rights evolved, Kameny became something of an artifact–honored for his role in the past, but paid less attention than he deserved, in the opinion of many.  Recognition, however, came to him beyond any of the neglectfulness he suffered.  A younger generation of activists discovered him, and celebrated him.  Official notoriety came to him, as well.  As the Washington Blade reported in another article detailing the response of the LGBTQ community to his passing: “In 2007, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History included his picket signs from the White House demonstration. Papers documenting his life were added to the Library of Congress in 2006. In 2009, Kameny received the Theodore Roosevelt Award.”

I met Kameny at a 2009 wreath laying for Sgt. Leonard Matlovich at the Old Congressional Cemetery in Washington City.  He spoke to the hundred or so in attendance on a beautiful October day, just prior to the National Equality March.  He beamed with pride, recounting his days as a soldier in the U.S. Army, as an astronomer, and then as a fighter for our rights. Sitting with Rev. Troy Perry, the Founder of the MCC Church, Kameny was no museum piece.  He was strong and determined to win 21st century freedoms for his people.  In death, his influence and inspiration have every prospect of increasing with the passage of time.

So, Frank Kameny, student of the stars, passed quietly from this life at his home. Before him, there was no way.  Thanks to him and his colleagues in the equality movement, a way was made out of no way.  Rest in peace, Frank.  We will not forget you.  ~ Stephen V. Sprinkle, Founder and Director of the Unfinished Lives Project

Thank you to the Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center. Never forget!

Laramie, Wyoming – Wednesday, October 12 will be the thirteenth anniversary of America’s archetypal gay hate crimes victim.  Matthew Shepard was brutally attacked and beaten into a coma by two locals who targeted him for abduction, robbery, and murder at the Fireside Lounge on the night of October 7, 1998.  They left him trussed to the base of a buck fence, exposed to the freezing cold after stealing his shoes.  When Matt was discovered the next day by a passing mountain biker, he was so brutally disfigured that his discoverer at first assumed what he was looking at was a broken down scarecrow that had been put out for Hallowe’en.  Matt’s injuries were too severe to be treated at the local hospital emergency room, so he was transported to Fort Collins in neighboring Colorado where a state of the art trauma center fought to save his life.  For five agonizing days, Matt lay close to death with an injured brain stem–a terrible wound from which he could never recover.  His family, mother Judy, father Dennis, and younger brother Logan stood vigil beside him while the life force ebbed.

For thirteen years, Matt’s memory has been honored, invoked, and ridiculed by a nation wrestling with heterosexism, homophobia, and transphobia–a culture of anti-LGBTQ violence that has claimed the lives of over 13,000 queer folk whom we know about (and God knows how many others whose murders have never been reported to anyone keeping records).  Nothing will ever bring any of them back to us.  They are gone, but to memory.

Those of us who labor for the better angels of our national character to emerge have a responsibility to remember Matt and all the rest, to honor them by never forgetting the cost of being sexually different in these United States, and to take up the mission of educating the LGBTQ community and the general public that difference of any kind is no warrant for ignorance,prejudice, and violence, but rather is an occasion for understanding and neighborly solidarity.  The anniversary of Matt’s untimely death is a good time to erase hatred from the American psyche.

In that spirit, I offer this short excerpt from “The Second Death of Matthew Shepard,” Chapter One of my recently published book, Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims:

“Matt Shepard died in a Fort Collins, Colorado hospital in the wee hours of October 12, 1998 with his parents by his side. Ironically, it was the day after America’s observance of National Coming Out Day. His team of doctors and nurses, professional as they were, could not undo what hate had done to Matt.  He never woke up from his coma. His heart gave out. The ventilator switched off, and Matt was gone. Our memory of him,however, cannot rest in peace. Not yet” (page 3).

Our memory of all the dead whose “unfinished lives” calls out to us to do the work of justice.  May Matt and the 13,000 rest in peace. God being our strength, we must not.  Grace and peace to all on this National Coming Out Day 2011.  ~ Stephen V. Sprinkle

Jerry Pittman Jr. and Dustin Lee (L to R), attacked by church members in West Tennessee

Humbolt, Tennessee – In the quiet outskirts of rural Humbolt, Tennessee, a church with a Fruitland address was the scene for a violent attack on two young gay men simply for arriving at Wednesday evening services.  What Would Jesus Do (WWJD) about Church-and-Pastor instigated gay bashing?  On September 28, Jerry Pittman Jr. and his boyfriend, Dustin Lee, arrived at Grace Fellowship Church where his father, Jerry Pittman Sr., is the pastor.  Just before the gay couple got out of their car, Jerry Jr. heard his father cry, “Sic ‘em!,” as a hunter would address a pack of dogs.  Two deacons from the church, and Jerry Jr.’s uncle who is also a deacon, attacked the pair while they were still trying to get out of the parked vehicle.  WBBJ Eyewitness News interviewed Jerry Jr. soon after the church gay bashed the couple: “My uncle and two other deacons came over to the car per my dad’s request,” young Jerry said. “My uncle smashed me in the door as the other deacon knocked my boyfriend back so he couldn’t help me, punching him in his face and his chest. The other deacon came and hit me through my car window in my back.”  The men kept yelling homophobic insults and slurs at the couple even after a Gibson County Deputy Sheriff arrived on the scene.  The couple attempted to press charges with the officer, who refused to allow them to do so, implying that they were the cause of the attack themselves.  Gibson County Sheriff Chuck Arnold defended the actions of his deputy to the press, saying, ”I haven’t talk to him but that would be out of character for my deputy to say unless they were causing a problem themselves.”  Media attention has caused the sheriff to temper his remarks in subsequent interviews.

Pittman and Lee did press charges the following Friday against Deacons Billy Sims and Eugene McCoy, as well as Rev. Jerry Pittman Sr. and Deacon Patrick Flatt, the younger Pittman’s uncle.  When WBBJ reporters contacted the pastor, he refused comment and demanded that the station not try to communicate with him again.

Evan Hurst of Truth Wins Out gives the latest details on this story that has shocked Christians and non-Christians alike, awakening them to the presence of virulent, anti-gay prejudice in America’s pulpits and pews.  Hurst spoke to Jerry Jr. by phone on October 5, who said, “The church acted as four people, instead of as a congregation.”  Pittman explained that he and his boyfriend had attended the church before, though they knew the condemning stance of the elder Pittman, who preached anti-gay sermons “when the couple wasn’t there.”  Lee had even been invited to sing at Grace Fellowship once when he attended services alone.  But marital trouble broke out between Pittman Sr. and Jerry Jr.’s stepmother, and, in Hurst’s words, “the floodgates opened and the church no longer felt the need to stay silent about Jerry, Jr. and his boyfriend.”   The charges and counter charges in this case are still being sorted out.  All parties are remanded to court on November 22.  Meanwhile, Jerry Pittman Jr. and Dustin Lee are left to pick up the pieces of their lives and shattered faith.  Jerry Jr. has already lost his job because of the days he has spent pursuing justice for himself and his boyfriend.

West Tennessee is a tough place to be gay or lesbian, much less transgender.  Hurst relates a “man-on-the-street” interview in Jackson, in which the reporter asked a passer-by about what he would do if his son brought a boyfriend to church with him.  The man candidly said he would shoot them.  The culture of hatred, religious intolerance of LGBTQ people, and church-sanctioned violence remains undisturbed in America’s heartland, no matter if there is a federal Matthew Shepard Act to offer some protection legally to marginalized gay people.

Would Jesus condone anti-gay violence?  If not, then why is such prejudice overtly and covertly incubated in the nation’s communities of faith, like Grace Fellowship?  While it may be simple for many Christians to dismiss the Grace Fellowship hate crime as an aberration in an embarrassing, Pentecostal byway, the silence from every other church in the surrounding area is deafening.  The Unfinished Lives Project has shown the link between religious intolerance, religious hate speech, and deadly anti-gay violence.  Nine out of ten fatal hate crimes perpetrated against LGBTQ people in the United States were sparked, by admission of the killers, by Bible or Church teaching.  If churches cannot speak out against an attack against a young gay couple simply for arriving at a church for services, what will they remain silent about next?  WWJD about Christians and Churches who gay bash or stand by silently while others do?  Read John 11:35: “Jesus wept.”